Western Oklahoma bank president indicted by US District Court on conspiracy to commit fraud charges

Danny Seibel

A federal grand jury has indicted Danny Seibel, the longtime president and CEO of First National Bank of Lindsay, on charges of orchestrating a multi-year conspiracy to commit bank fraud that ultimately led to the small Oklahoma bank’s collapse.

Seibel, 54, of Lindsay, is accused of steering millions of dollars in loans to personal friends and neighbors who never repaid them, then hiding the bad loans by falsifying bank records, issuing new loans to cover old overdrafts, and even transferring the bank’s own money to keep delinquent accounts from showing red flags

According to the 28-count indictment unsealed today in the Western District of Oklahoma, Seibel’s alleged scheme ran from at least 2007 until his firing in September 2024. During that time he wore multiple hats at the 120-year-old bank: president, CEO, chief financial officer, and Bank Secrecy Act officer.

Prosecutors say Seibel went to extraordinary lengths to conceal the fraud from federal regulators and his own board of directors. When examiners from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) arrived for an on-site review in summer 2024, Seibel allegedly handed them a doctored document that erased evidence of hundreds of changes he had secretly made to loan files.

The indictment also charges that Seibel deliberately failed to maintain any meaningful anti-money-laundering program, never filed a single suspicious-activity report on his own fraudulent loans, and even coached customers to “structure” cash deposits under $10,000 to avoid triggering federal reporting requirements

.Less than a month after Seibel’s termination, the OCC shuttered First National Bank of Lindsay and appointed the FDIC as receiver , effectively closing one of Garvin County’s oldest financial institutions.

If convicted on all counts, Seibel faces up to 30 years in federal prison and fines of up to $1 million.

“Danny Seibel allegedly treated a federally insured bank like his personal piggy bank while lying to regulators, his board, and the community that trusted him,” said U.S. Attorney Robert J. Troester for the Western District of Oklahoma. “Today’s indictment holds him accountable for betraying that trust and jeopardizing the financial security of an entire town.”

The case is being investigated by the FDIC Office of Inspector General, FBI, IRS Criminal Investigation, and the Federal Housing Finance Agency Office of Inspector General. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Julia E. Barry and Jackson D. Eldridge are prosecuting alongside Justice Department trial attorneys from the Criminal Division’s Bank Integrity Unit.

Seibel is scheduled to make his initial court appearance next week in Oklahoma City federal court.